London Military Museums
Alan L. Bailey
Travel story on Military Museums of London
By Alan L. Bailey
Copyright 1993 Alan L. Bailey
The exploding bombs sounded distant as George, an air raid
warden by night and grocer by day, warned us the attack was one
he never forgot. When the anti-aircraft guns fired the flak,
someone said it was good to be giving them something back. As
the blasts drew nearer, the crowd in the underground shelter
began singing, "Roll out the barrel." The bombs' piercing
whistles became louder.
Suddenly, a woman screamed, "Stop it," and an explosion rocked
the shelter, shaking our bench, almost a direct hit. After the
sirens, our warden opened the entrance as smoke drifted in, and
with his flashlight, he motioned us out. We saw the flickering
lights from the fires throughout London. In the distance stood
the untouched dome of St. Paul's Cathedral. Through the rubble,
the guide returned us to the basement of the Imperial War Museum.
My group of 20 visitors had just experienced the Blitz in a
re-creation of the sights, sounds and smells of a packed
underground shelter in London during the fierce German bombings
of 1940-41. It's part of the theatrics that has made the
Imperial War Museum and London's other national military museums
a favorite stop during the 50-year anniversary celebrations of
World War II that continue through 1995. In November of 1992, I
was in London for eight days and visited several government
museums.
Imperial War Museum
Revenge-class battleship guns with 15-inch bores and weighing
100 tons each guard the entrance to this former lunatic asylum,
Bethlem Royal Hospital, or Bedlam, now a museum of 20th-century
wars in which more than 100 million people have died.
After a security search for real bombs, I entered the large
exhibits gallery on the ground floor, a three-story central
atrium. Vintage warplanes such as the P-51 Mustang, a Sopwith
Camel and a Focke Wulf 190 are suspended from the white metal
lattice and glass ceiling. The air power includes the infamous
V-2 rocket and a Royal Navy Polaris missile, both resting in
vertical firing position. The gallery is dominated by heavy
artillery and tanks, the most famous being the M3 Grant command
tank used by then Lt. Gen. B.L. Montgomery during the decisive
1942 battle of El Alamein.
The first and second floors are viewing balconies and art
galleries, displaying some of the museum's 12,000 paintings,
drawings and sculptures. On the balconies are peculiar relics,
such as a charred rear fuselage and Daimler-Benz engine from the
crashed Messerschmitt that had been flown by Rudolph Hess on his
abortive peace mission in May 1941. Near by on a pedestal sat
the bronze German eagle, complete with a bullet hole in its left
wing, which was removed from Berlin's Reich Chancellery in 1945.
The lower ground floor contains displays of the world wars,
including the London Blitz and front-line trench warfare
experiences. The liberation of the Belsen concentration camp by
British troops is depicted with a warning of the graphic nature
of the photographs and films. Another gallery honors those
awarded the Victoria Cross and the George Cross. Also for $2
(1.25 pounds) visitors can take a five-minute ride in a flight
simulator with the original footage of a Royal Air Force
Mosquito fighter warplane in Operation Jericho, a 1944 air raid
over France to free captive Resistance prisoners.
A repository of British papers and captured German material,
the museum maintains more than 100,000 books, 25,000 pamphlets,
15,000 volumes of periodicals and 15,000 maps as well as 50,000
posters, 12,000 hours of sound recordings, 5 million prints and
negatives, and British films plus American, Soviet and Nazi
newsreels. All available to the public. An appointment is
necessary, either by telephone or writing.
Imperial War Museum, Lambeth Road, London SE1 6HZ. Telephone:
071-416 5000. Open daily 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Admission is $5.60
(3.50 pounds with 1 pound=$1.60). Admission is free after 4:30 p.m.
Blitz Experience is free. Underground: Lambeth North or Elephant and
Castle.
National Maritime Museum and Royal Naval College
Downstream from London on the River Thames in Greenwich, a
complex of 18th-century Baroque buildings that were once royal
palaces and hospitals now comprise the National Maritime Museum
and Royal Naval College. Two of the museum's largest galleries
are devoted to Britain's naval tradition in the 20th century and
to Admiral Horatio Nelson, the country's most illustrious hero.
The 20th-century sea power exhibit chronicles the progression
of sea strength to protect merchant sea lanes. "Sea power goes
through a sequence from battleship to aircraft carrier to
submarine, in a chronological sequence they replace one another
in the Twentieth Century in importance," research curator Dr.
Roger Morriss (Editors: Correct spelling) said as we walked by a
wall with 27 video screens blasting clips of sea footage for an
impressive visual impact.
The gallery is constructed around the gray metallic replica of
the bow of a Tribal class destroyer that soars to the height of
the cavernous hall and stretches for almost the room's length of
162 feet. Next to the audio-visual area is a modern "Ops Room"
from a Type 22 frigate, allowing visitors to become the captain
and defend the ship against an underwater threat or an air
attack using sonar, radar and gunnery on computer terminals.
The gallery displays more than 100 oil and watercolor
paintings, including the end of the Bismarck on May 27, 1941,
and the tanker Ohio in the Malta convoy August 10-15, 1942 as
part of Operation Pedestal.
The exhibit shows more than 40 models, including the H.M.S.
Hermes, the last of the Royal Navy's traditional aircraft
carriers and flagship of the battle group in the 1982 Falklands
conflict, and the H.M.S. Vanguard, first of the Royal Navy's
Trident II submarines launched March 6, 1992, on which Britain
is making the centerpiece of its navy as it enters the 21st
century.
The Nelson Gallery hails from the time Britain ruled the seas
and has the world's largest collection of Nelson memorabilia and
papers, including the cabin furniture from the H.M.S. Victory,
his command ship, and the maiden figurehead from his funeral
carriage.
As he was explaining Nelson's honored role in British history,
Morriss paused at the display of uniforms. "And this," he said
pointing to a dark navy blue coat, "was the uniform he was
wearing when he died."
The uniform has a hole in the back left shoulder where a French
sharpshooter's bullet entered. The breeches still show the
brownish blood stains of blood from the October 21, 1805 Battle
of Trafalgar where Nelson died while commanding the outnumbered
English warships to victory against the French and Spanish naval
forces off Spain's Trafalgar Cape in the Atlantic Ocean.
Personal mementos of Nelson and his lover, Lady Emma Hamilton,
wife of a British diplomat, are exhibited, including Nelson's
pigtail, snipped from his hair at death and later presented to
Lady Hamilton.
Across Romney Road with its public entrance on King William
Walk, the Royal Naval College permits the public access to only
two areas, both of limited military interest, yet definitely
worth visiting: the Painted Hall, the 400-seat dining room and
site of Britain's formal state dinners, and the Chapel,
considered one of England's best acoustic halls where many
chamber music works are recorded.
The Baroque-styled Painted Hall was designed by Christopher
Wren, the architect of St. Paul's Cathedral, and painted by
James Thornhill, who completed his masterpiece in 1726 after 19
years of work. Wren's Chapel was destroyed by fire in 1776 and
rebuilt in a Rococo style with a Benjamin West painting of a
shipwrecked St. Paul on Malta dominating behind the altar.
The college's buildings can been viewed in the movie "Patriot
Games." The attempted assassination scene in London was filmed
on campus. While all museums require bag searches, expect
increased security checks with requests for photo identification
here because the college trains mid-career naval officers in the
country's nuclear power program and because prominent guests
appear at state dinners.
National Maritime Museum, Romney Road, Greenwich, London SE10
9NF. Telephone: 081-858 4422. Open 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
Monday-Saturday; noon-6 p.m. Sunday. Admission is $6.12 (3.95 pounds).
Royal Naval College, King William Walk, Greenwich, London SE10
9NN. Telephone: 081-858 2154. Open 2:30-5 p.m. daily, except
Thursday when it is closed for state dinners. Admission is free.
Getting to Greenwich: British Rail from Charing Cross to Maze
Hill station; Docklands Light Railway to Island Gardens, then
foot-tunnel under River Thames, or by river service from
Westminster.
Cabinet War Rooms
Fighting a 20th-century war from rooms designed for coal bins
and storage seems unthinkable, but that's what Great Britain did
in World War II. Located 10 feet below King Charles Street in
the basement of the Renaissance-style New Public Offices in the
heart of Whitehall and designed to withstand the direct hit of a
500-pound German bomb, the 21 Cabinet War Rooms were the
underground command complex used by Prime Minister Winston
Churchill, his War Cabinet and chiefs of staff of Britain's
armed forces from 1939 to 1945.
All visitors are given a portable tape-cassette player with
room-by-room sound guide that lasts about 45 minutes. The tape
contains dramatic, symphonic music and pounding timpani as the
commentator talks about the London of 1940, "a capital of a
country under siege. Britain standing alone for freedom. . . .
bombed, blacked-out, blitzed. The great city lived on."
The rooms appear more as if the chaps just step out for their
afternoon tea. Everything displayed in the rooms, shielded from
the public by glass to control temperature and humidity, is
certified as authentic, from scraps of note papers to
Churchill's helmet to the BBC equipment that can still operate
for radio broadcasting to the trans-Atlantic telephone, the
world's first "hot line" linking Churchill and President
Franklin Roosevelt.
The tour starts at the cramped Cabinet Room, where the
eight-member War Cabinet met with the service chiefs on 110
formal occasions during the war, mostly during the Blitz and the
attacks by the V-1 flying bombs and V-2 rockets. The room is
laid out as it was at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, October 15, 1940. The
evening before bombs damaged Number 10 Downing Street, home of
the prime minister.
The walls have not been redecorated. They are just as they were
left in 1945. On down the hall, there is a relief map of the
Malaya Peninsula that had been used to illustrate the campaign
that ended in Britain's greatest defeat of the war, the
surrender of Singapore in February of 1942.
Catty-corner from the "hot line" room and next to the Map Room
is Churchill's emergency bedroom and office, from where he made
many famous radio speeches, including his announcement to the
British people of war on Japan. The room is the only one with
wall-to-wall carpet. A white nightgown rests on the pillow of
the twin-sized bed. There is another large metal tin can,
painted light blue to serve as an ashtray.
Churchill stayed in the thick of the day-to-day, hour-to-hour
operations. In the literature, I noticed he only slept in his
emergency bedroom for two nights after the beginning of the
Blitz and one night after Number 10 Downing was bombed. A new
apartment was built directly above the war rooms in the office
building so Churchill could be closer to the war rooms.
During the apartment's construction, he usually slept at
another shelter near Piccadilly. I thought this somewhat strange
since he already had the bedroom bunker at the war rooms. I
asked curator Jon Wenzel why Churchill wanted the new apartment
and spent so little time sleeping at the command center. I
discovered something that had been discreetly glossed over about
Churchill's preferences.
In the rush to bomb-proof the war rooms by surrounding them
with steel-reinforced concrete, engineers did not allow for
toilet facilities. During his nocturnal urges, Churchill had to
use a chamber pot. He preferred risking German bombs in the
unprotected, above ground flat with a watercloset than in the
safe, underground shelter with chamber pot.
Cabinet War Rooms, Clive Steps, King Charles Street, London
SW1A 2AQ. Telephone: 071-930 6961. Open daily 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
Admission is $5.76 (3.60 pounds). Underground: Westminster or St.
James Park.
Royal Air Force Museum
Britain embraced the new flying machines, creating the world's
first military flying school at Upavon in 1912 and the first
separate air command, the Royal Air Force in 1918. The RAF
museum, located in Hendon in hangars of a former airfield,
records these events in its exhibits and displays aircraft, both
military and civilian.
On entering the Main Aircraft Hall, there's a production model
of the flimsy Bl‚riot XI, the type flown by Louis Bl‚riot on
July 25, 1909, in the first cross-channel flight. The main hall
houses mostly fighters and experimental prototypes, such as the
Supermarine Spitfire I and the Avro Rota, an autogyro design of
the 1930s. In the adjacent Bomber Command Hall, there's a Boeing
B-17G, the famous Flying Fortress, and Britain's version of the
Enola Gay, a white Vickers Valiant that dropped the country's
first atomic bomb in 1956 tests at Maralinga, Australia.
Across a parking lot, the Battle of Britain Hall contains the
aircraft flown in that struggle by both the Brits and Germans.
The Luftwaffe is represented with bombers Heinkel HE 111H and
Junkers JU88, dive bomber Junkers JU87, long-range fighter
Messerschmitt BF110, the V-1 flying bomb and the V-2 rocket.
Two British aircraft not seen in most aircraft collections are
on exhibit: the mammoth Sunderland V, a flying boat flown by the
Coastal Command that the Germans nicknamed the "Flying
Porcupine," and a single-engine Westland Lysander, principally
used to ferry spies to France.
Royal Air Force Museum, Grahame Park Way, Hendon, London NW9
5LL. Telephone: 081-205 2266. Open daily 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
Admission is $7.20 (œ4.50). Underground: Colindale.
National Army Museum
Tucked away in Chelsea next to the Royal Hospital, the museum
has galleries ranging from the Napoleonic wars to the First and
Second World Wars.
Weapons such as swords and machine guns plus uniforms from the
17th-century Civil War to Operation Desert Storm are shown.
There's an art center with military portrait paintings by Thomas
Gainsborough and Joshua Reynolds, among others.
The most interesting display is a model of the Battle of
Waterloo by William Siborne, a captain in the Duke of
Wellington's army. The model was a passion of Siborne's that
caused him to go bankrupt and die in poverty in 1849.
Siborne's work of Wellington's epic defeat of Napoleon began
with a survey to surviving officers of the duke's army, asking
them where they were and what they remembered at 7 p.m. on the
night of June 18, 1815.
He built a 420-sq. ft. model with 70,000 miniature soldiers,
individual figures of cast iron with joints that move their arms
and legs. Villages with complete landscape were reconstructed on
top the wooden platform, now located in the Road to Waterloo
gallery.
National Army Museum, Royal Hospital Road, Chelsea, London SW3
4HT. Telephone: 071-730 0717. Open daily 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Admission is free. Underground: Sloane Square.
HMS Belfast
On the south bank of the River Thames between Tower and London
bridges, the battle cruiser HMS Belfast is Europe's largest
surviving World War II warship. Simulation of the 1943 Battle of
North Cape and sinking of the German battle cruiser Scharnhorst
takes place in the Operations Room, one of more than 40 areas on
exhibit. Caution is recommended to those who have trouble
climbing steep, narrow ladders, the method of going through the
seven decks.
HMS Belfast, Morgan's Lane, Tooley Street, London SE1 2JH.
Telephone: 071-407 6434. Open daily 10 a.m.-6 p.m. in summer,
till 4:30 p.m. in winter. Admission is $6.08 (œ3.80).
Underground: London Bridge.
Other military-related museums
Wellington Museum, Apsley House, 149 Piccadilly, Hyde Park
Corner, London W1V 9FA. Telephone: 071-499 5676. Open
Tuesday-Sunday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m., closed Monday. Admission is
$3.20 (œ2). Underground: Hyde Park Corner. Also known as Number
1, London, the Apsley House exhibits include paintings,
decorations and relics of the Duke of Wellington, victor at
Waterloo.
Royal Armouries, Tower of London, London EC3N 4AB. Telephone:
071-480 6358. Open March-October, Monday-Saturday 9:30 a.m.-5:45
p.m., Sunday 2-5:30 p.m. November-February closes at 4:30 p.m.
daily. Admission to Tower of London is $9.60 (œ6). Underground:
Tower Hill. Along with the personal weapons and armor of British
rulers and notable figures, the collection contains the best
Civil War period 1642-1651 material extant.
Guards Museum, Wellington Barracks, Birdcage Walk, London SW1E
6HQ. Telephone: 071-414 3271. Open daily 10 a.m.-4 p.m., except
Friday and some ceremonial days. Admission is $3.20 (œ2).
Underground: St. James Park. History of the Foot Guards, the
museum is located so you can combine it with watching the Horse
Guards at Buckingham Palace.
Royal Fusiliers Museum, Tower of London, London EC3N 4AB.
Telephone: 071-488 5610. Open March to October, Monday-Saturday
10 a.m.-5 p.m., Sunday 2-5 p.m. November-February, closed Sunday
and at 4:15 p.m. daily. Admission to the Tower is $9.60 (œ6).
Underground: Tower Hill. Museum covers the history of the Royal
Fusiliers from 1685 to 1968, including weapons, uniforms and
equipment.
Military books and antiques
Derek Hayles Military Books, 35 St. Marks Road, Maidenhead,
Berkshire SL6 6DJ. Telephone: (0628) 39535. Hayles, who operates
his store only via post, produces a brochure listing 27 military
book stores in London and the United Kingdom. Many are small
shops open by appointment or specialize, such as Napoleonic or
colonial wars. The brochure is free by writing him, but he asks
you enclose an International Reply Coupon (95 cents) or a $1 bill to
cover postage.
W & G Foyle Ltd., 113-119 Charing Cross Road, London WC2H 0EB.
No public telephones. Monday-Saturday, 9:30 a.m.-7 p.m. Closed
Sunday. Underground: Leicester Square. Massive book store with
its current military titles sharing the southern wing of the
second floor with books on sports.
Francis Edwards of London, 13 Great Newport Street, London WC2H
4JA. Telephone: 071-379 7669; fax 071-836 5977. Open
Monday-Saturday 9:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Closed Sunday.
Underground: Leicester Square. At Charing Cross, secondhand and
antiquarian store has naval and military books with a good
selection of out-of-print titles.
Blunderbuss Antiques, 29 Thayer Street, London W1. Telephone:
071-486 2444. Open Monday-Saturday 9:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m.. Closed
Sunday. Underground: Bond Street. For the serious collector,
19th-century gilded Dragoon Guards officer's helmet, about
$7,500, or a Hussars' saber tache, about $1,600.
-30-
Alan L. Bailey
Send comments:
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Daan Claassen
Christopher Cook
>Did anybody read this long piece of bull shit?
Yes. I live within ten miles of everything described, and tho'
the original poster is obviously keener on military history
than I am, I now feel guilty about how little of it I have seen
(or even remebered existed) ...
Got any *constructive* criticism perchance?
mcsp...@dct.ac.uk
> Did anybody read this long piece of bull shit?
Did anybody read this short piece of bull shit?